Sustainability and Wild Harvesting Communities in Appalachia

About the Project

The AHPA ERB Foundation has committed to funding a pilot study of an ethnographic research framework developed by the Sustainable Herbs Initiative (SHI) Wild Harvesting Working Group. The pilot study includes conducting interviews with wild harvesters in central Appalachia and SHI Director and Project Principal Investigator Ann Armbrecht, Ph.D., will prepare a case study based on this initial study. The goal of the project is to document the diversity of challenges faced in ethically sourcing wild harvested plants, to identify solutions to these challenges, and to share the results with industry stakeholders. Dr. Armbrecht anticipates that the results of this case study will include recommendations for expanding the research to an additional 14 wild harvested species from different geographic regions.

Wild Harvesting Challenges

The challenges facing wild harvesting communities are fairly well understood in the herbal products industry: younger generations migrating to urban areas; aging harvesting communities; overharvesting species; loss of traditional knowledge about sustainable harvesting practices and more. Less is known both about how these challenges unfold in specific regions and, importantly, less is known about local solutions to these challenges. There is the promise that wild harvesting can offer sustainable livelihoods for marginal communities, but there is little evidence that that is in fact the case and that the higher prices and volumes promised are realized.

SHI Wild Plants Working Group members include those working with wild plants around the world. We will use this expertise to conduct research on these plants to ground the assumptions about wild harvesting with actual case studies on how communities are experiencing these challenges and the solutions they are designing. Our goal is to gather best practices from different regions of the world to help create a framework for the herbal products industry that can be adopted and applied in different cultural, ecological, and socio-economic settings.

Why Appalachia?

Ann Armbrecht is beginning this project by conducting a series of interviews with wild harvesters in Appalachia. We are beginning there because the issues faced in Appalachia: poverty, marginalization, a history of extractive industries, out migration, are similar to those faced in wild harvesting communities around the world. An anthropologist from West Virginia, Armbrecht also has contacts in the region who have helped her reach different wild harvesting communities. With filmmaker Terrence Youk, Armbecht also produced a short video: Wild Harvesting in Appalachia, co-led the 2020 Forest Botanicals Week with Katie Commender from the Appalachian Herb Hub, and is part of the Appalachian Regional Commission through their Appalachian Regional Initiative for Stronger Economies (ARISE).

About the Researcher

Ann Armbrecht, Ph.D., an anthropologist, is the director of the Sustainable Herbs Initiative. She is the author of Following the Herbal Harvest: A Search for the Healing Promise of Plant Medicines (previously published under the title, The Business of Botanicals: Exploring the Healing Promise of Plant Medicines in a Global Industry) that documents her journey following herbs from seed to shelf. With filmmaker Terrence Youk, she co-produced the documentary Numen: The Healing Power of Plants, celebrating the values of traditional western herbalism. Armbrecht is also the author of the award-winning ethnographic memoir Thin Places: A Pilgrimage Home, based on her research in Nepal. She was a 2017 Fulbright-Nehru Scholar documenting the supply chain of medicinal plants in India and lives with her family in central Vermont.

Project Collaborators

• Paulo Barriga, Pebani, Peru

• Gero Diekmann, EcoSo, Namibia

• Edward Fletcher, Native Botanicals, Inc.

• Trent McCausland, Nature’s Sunshine

• Wilson Lau, Nuherbs

• Lauren Ann Nichols-Sheffler, WishGarden Herbs

• Finn Rautenbach, Afrigetics

• Tyler Wauters, Banyan Botanicals

• Julia Weaver, Gaia Herbs

Please direct any questions about the AHPA ERB Foundation to ahpafoundation@ahpa.org.
​